6/20/11

American Exceptionalism

Basis for reemergence from economic disruption...

How our current government and political system became a bastard.

Despite the disparaging attitude self-named Progressives (Social and Liberal Democrats) hold toward the concept of American exceptionalism, it is the primary factor that will cause the United States to resurge after an extended period of economic downturn and political disruption. A case can be made that the underlying real reason for the current problems we are now experiencing is the Federal government acting outside of the US Constitution. The background for this conjecture is based in history from the beginning of the Progressive movement in the early 20th century, which is rooted in communism and socialism, to today when progressive concepts have seeped into American government. The movement crept into our system after the WWI, reinforced by FDR's New Deal programs, illegally created through Executive Orders rather than constitutional means, further buttressed by LBJ's Great Society programs. Corporations and so-called Conservatives (Corporate Republicans) are not without blood on their hands in this inadvisable folly, since they willingly went along with distortion of the true intent for the United States in the US Constitution, that made this country exceptional.

The year 1913 is significant due to the 16th Amendment creating the authority to collect income taxes and the 17th Amendment allowing the direct election of Senators. Both of these amendments go directly against concepts of the Founding Fathers intentions and the ideals that influenced them. They were ratified when the Progressive movement was at its height being passed off as Populism. The distorted form of the Federal government of today has also been reinforced by the US Court system acting in ways that it was never intended to and misuse of Executive Orders by Presidents of the US. Although a case could be made that this illicit form of governing began with the Civil War, our situation today springs more from the early 20th Century. To state it succinctly, the Progressive movement with the aid of Populists was the root and cause of the federal government acting extraconstitutionally through their infiltration of bureaucratic agencies. We are still operating under those rules with complicit acceptance by both major political parties.

Our government is unconstitutional therefore unlawful.

Then by default this makes our current Federal Government and Congress an illegitimate government operating outside the boundaries laid down by the Founding Fathers in the US Constitution. They established those foundations for a reason, to avoid the type of surreptitious government illegally governing the country today.

Ignorance of history and the founding of our nation is the enemy.

One of the biggest shifts after WWI that the progressive movement and populists advanced was the notion of shifting economics and therefore law, away from the power of the Industrialists, who were also operating extraconstitutionally and not in true laissez-faire capitalism as the Founding Fathers intended. They had conspired with politicians to pass laws in their favor, distorting true free market enterprise, creating a response by the progressive and labor movement to shift legislation and by default bureaucratic agencies to the consumer and worker. At first glance this may not seem like a bad thing. The difficulty lies in that both sides deformed the values that made the United States of America an exceptional nation through legislative arm twisting. Although the progressives are the most covert of the two, the industrialists who are now contemporary corporations, are just as guilty. They are co-conspirators playing a sham game of good versus evil which is apocryphal and beguiling.

The shift in emphasis to the consumer and worker away from a true free market of entrepreneurs and producers with buyers was the beginning of regulated market modern day consumerism. Consumerism is the root cause of our current economic and political situation. It is an economic way of life that must be perpetuated in order to be maintained and ultimately must end up in self-immolation by its very nature. Everything else from fiat money inflation, political bastardization, debt overhang, unemployment, is the aftermath of construction of an economy built on over-consumption of consumer goods. There is nowhere to go any more with this mode of economic madness and no matter how much has been puffed into this style of living globule it is doomed. There have been outliers shouting this in the wilderness for decades but they have been largely ignored in the pale since the crash was not imminent. Now it is here. Any thinking person recognizes that somehow, sooner rather than later, in our lifetime, in the near future, the consumer economy will in the end be dead on arrival. It is this force that will ultimately cause the social, economic and political downfall and disruption of our current system.

America is exceptional due to its original ideals and the people.

It is not the end but the catalyst for a revival of the America Way. America is a unique nation, founded without a long history of an inherited class structure, flavored with a variety of immigrants and based on principles of liberty, individualism, equality, freedom, laissez-faire, justice and organized in a thoughtful deliberate fashion by a document that is the US Constitution. It is with these assets this country will revive and restore itself. This American exceptionalism, closely aligned with Manifest Destiny, has been trampled on, scoffed at, denigrated, disparaged and degraded. Still, itlives in the minds and hearts of many, regardless of over a century and generations of reeducation to try to stamp it out of existence. For every person that never came unstuck from the American Spirit that it is inherent in the American character, now is the time to rise above and bring out the very best qualities that live within us. It is these qualities that make us exceptional, which will allow the country to be rebuilt anew based on the enduring principles upon which it was founded. This is the basis for the reemergence from economic, political and social disruption that is plaguing our country and in a cataclysmic way will be cast out, while we simultaneously refashion what we already have that is worthwhile keeping and start creating new accomplishments again.

I Think, I Create, I Live...Once I was a corporate road warrior but these days I travel the American West and the Internet. My website blog documents my observations and commentary on life in the American Southwest through the lens of my smartphone photographic art and writing. I am a lifelong Arizonan that keeps life simple but not stupid.